SHANGHAI, China (UCAN) -- The Fudan University in Shanghai launched its Xu-Ricci Dialogue Institute on May 11, the 400th death anniversary of the pioneering Italian Jesuit missioner to China, Father Matteo Ricci. The institute, which comes under the university’s School of Philosophy, hosted a colloquium that day to commemorate the priest’s contribution to East-West dialogue. The new center is named after Father Ricci and his closest Chinese friend, Paul Xu Guangqi, the first Catholic in Shanghai. According to French Jesuit Father Benoit Vermander, co-director of the institute, it is the first Chinese academic center to bear these two names. The institute aims to promote academic research, the teaching of religious studies, and comparisons between Chinese and Western cultures and philosophies. About 70 Chinese and foreign scholars in the fields of economics, philosophy and religious studies attended the May 11 colloquium, which saw participants discussing religious dialogue and the challenges faced by the Chinese and global communities.